Viking mythology and all that goes with it

[Tyra]

In mundane life, yes, but in some parts of the geographical area that was inhabited by "vikings", it was also a religious implement and an everyday implement that one would use for this and that. You can use it for lots of stuff...gutting fish, deer, chicken...oh, and people, cutting hair, vegetables, threads, fishing line, or you can use them to hack your way through brambles with them. Today they are used as some sort of atame for those of the Northern Tradition Wicca faith. They are very nice looking blades in any case.
On my apron, I hang lots of beads, but also my sewing/needle case (of deer bone), my keys, my snips (like scissors), my keys and my knife, the latter three in leather cases. I think that's it...still makes me feel (and sound) like a walking christmas tree.

Bates, I've now looked in Skaldskaparmal, which is the #1 source for stuff like this. It speaks quite extensively about different kennings for gold and so on, but it refers to gold simply as "gull", as in gold, all except for in one place, where it says "lýsigull". I have a feeling this word has to do with the gold lighting up the room, as in light-gold (light as in to shine, not as in to weigh). I've never encountered this word before, and i don't have anyone to ask a t m, so I'll have to do some digging. Either way, it does not speak about red or yellow gold per se, and I still cannot think of any place where it mentions a difference between the two. I will be seing some of my kindred tomorrow, so I'll ask them. Maybe they'll know.

 

[Tyra]

Before anyone asks, NO i don't own a little strainer. They don't make them like that any more. They are very small things that one would use to strain out spices and guck when you pour the mead into a horn or glass. The closest I can get to anything like that is a tea strainer, and it is still too big a thing to be "period". The search continues.

 

[Erzebeth.Rouge]

key, knife, added

 

[Erzebeth.Rouge]

why the trim should be above the waist? or cant there be above and at the end of the dress or the apron?

 

[Tyra]

KeyS - I'm betting a lady like her would have had more than one. Google a few Viking Age keys first, though, cuz they don't look like modern keys.

 

[Tyra]

why the trim should be above the waist? or cant there be above and at the end of the dress or the apron?

I dunno - fashion I guess. We just don't have any examples of dresses with trims on the bottom. Besides - speaking as someone who's worn these things quite a lot now - these dresses get dirty on the bottom, rain or no rain. It'd be a waste of good trim, as it'd get wrecked fairly quickly. They did not have wash machines back then, and trim washes differently than fabric (read: more difficult to maintain). It is also painstaking work to make trim (done that too), and the bottom of a dress uses up a lot of yardage compared to just putting it on the chest, neck and sleeves. So maybe there were practical reasons, but if nothing else, blame it on fashion.

 

[Bates]

Tool, and also the symbol of a freeman (at least to the Saxons). They came in tool and weapon sizes, at least at one point. At least, I'm pretty damn sure the 3ft long versions weren't for cutting vegetables.
Got any images on the strainer, T? Can't imagine they'd be that hard to make. Well, I guess dimensions more then pictures, it's not that hard to figure out what it does and looks like.

 

[Erzebeth.Rouge]

hehe that makes sens but then, wouldnt a goddess able to afford it?



...blame on fashion.. ok i get it

 

[Tyra]

Pic of keys on this page: http://www.quietpress.com/vikingpendant.html

Yes, Bates, I have pics. I just have to see if I can transfer one over...just a minute.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

I still want a real good spear and shield.
maybe the coldsteel boar spear. dunno

 

[Erzebeth.Rouge]

lol i was just about to say that i draw this one

 

[Tyra]

That's a small dagger on the bottom. This one is of silver, so it's not so badly destroyed as most of the ones I've seen.

 

[Tyra]

I still want a real good spear and shield.
maybe the coldsteel boar spear. dunno

A shield is not that difficult to make, you know. The spear is trickier, unless you're like Bates, and can do some blacksmithing... There are good on-line tutorials as to how to make a good shield, but as for the spear, buy the head and make the shaft. Then you can customize it to whatever lenght, material and so on you want.

 

[Bates]

I still want a real good spear and shield.
maybe the coldsteel boar spear. dunno

Hehe, yeah. Spear point is definitely on my To-Do list... admittedly, it might be a while, I'm still learning the hard way about "things not to do".

 

[Tyra]

Bates, I've been trying to find info on whether that symbolism with the freeman/seax overlaps with the Norse culture, or if it is a strictly Saxon thing. I am not getting very far with it, though, because there is so much pseudo-archaeology on this specific topic, what with all the SCA dudes and the Saxon-pagan-mixed-with-asatru-and-wicca sticking their oars in here, that I have a difficult time weeding out hypothesis from amateur guess or religious ideas and SCA "well they had the ability to make them, so they must have used them, and besides, they look so cool I just want to own one"... What I have found, though, for sure, is that this was a western Scandinavian practise - we don't find many scramaseaxes in Sweden at all, but they were reasonably common in the Danelaw and on the Norwegian west coast.

 

[Bates]

That's a small dagger on the bottom. This one is of silver, so it's not so badly destroyed as most of the ones I've seen.

OK, so it's really like a deep spoon with pinholes in the bottom. I might have to try and see if I can make one.

 

[Erzebeth.Rouge]

bah, ive draw something like this for the knife/sword.. ive just redraw it actually.

but littlier.. if possible

or

 

[Erzebeth.Rouge]

what do you make of that spoon? i saw one like that at the middleage museum 3 weeks ago in paris

i took it in picture to show my friends. i was wondering what the hel the priests where doing with this, because the joke is, we see only one use for this spoon, and its for absinth...

so whats with you Bates?

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

A shield is not that difficult to make, you know. The spear is trickier, unless you're like Bates, and can do some blacksmithing... There are good on-line tutorials as to how to make a good shield, but as for the spear, buy the head and make the shaft. Then you can customize it to whatever lenght, material and so on you want.

aye, Im totally gonna make a shield. should be fairly cheap too.
Anyone have any good links for building an actual shield... non of that plywood one piece crap.

 

[Erzebeth.Rouge]

is there some sort of blessing we could find sometimes on someone's blade, runes of course? what would it look like? what words in old norse could be carved?